Chapter Text
Hermione was beside herself with worry over not having seen Harry since he went off toward the Headmaster’s office, clutching the vial filled with Snape’s memories against his chest. She could not, for the life of her, imagine what was so important that Snape couldn’t have said before his literal dying breath.
And "You have your mother’s eyes"? Really? How could that possibly be his final words?
She was helping tend to the wounded just outside the Entrance Hall when she saw Neville and Oliver Wood carrying a body in from the grounds. Hermione looked closer and felt a dull blow to her stomach: Colin Creevey. Though underage, he must have sneaked back, just as Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had done. He was tiny in death.
“You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville,” said Oliver Wood. He heaved Colin over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him into the Great Hall.
Neville leaned against the doorframe for a moment and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked like an old man. Then he set off again down the steps into the darkness to recover more bodies.
A few minutes passed. Just as Neville was bending over another fallen student, he suddenly startled—and then she saw him. Harry.
He had just pulled off his cloak—of course he was wearing that blasted cloak—and was whispering something to Neville. Neville looked suspicious at first, then frightened, and finally resigned. He patted Harry on the shoulder and walked away to look for more bodies.
Harry swung the Cloak back over himself and vanished. Hermione, however, was having none of it. She cast a tracking charm in his general direction, determined to follow wherever he went.
“Here!” cried Hermione again a few moments later from out of the darkness. “Oh no, sorry! I thought it said Potter.”
She was rubbing at a crumbling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on her face.
“Harry, come back a moment.”
Harry did not want to be sidetracked again, and only grudgingly made his way back through the snow toward her.
“What?” “Look at this!”
The grave was extremely old, weathered so that Harry could hardly make out the name. Hermione showed him the symbol beneath it.
“Harry, that’s the mark in the book!”
He peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be a triangular mark beneath the nearly illegible name.
“Yeah … it could be. …”
Hermione lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone. “It says Ig — Ignotus, I think. …”
He stopped briefly beside Ginny and a small girl before heading toward Hagrid’s hut. Then he moved on and reached the edge of the forest—only to stop again. A swarm of Dementors was gliding among the trees; Hermione could feel their chill, and she doubted anyone could pass safely through them, let alone conjure a Patronus in this state.
Then something strange happened. Though she could not see Harry beneath the Cloak, she heard him say, “I am about to die,” and moments later, four figures appeared in the clearing—neither ghost nor truly flesh.
There was a pause. Finally Hermione asked stiffly, “Mr. Lovegood, does the Peverell family have anything to do with the Deathly Hallows?”
Xenophilius looked taken aback.
“But you have been misleading me, young woman!” said Xenophilius, now sitting up much straighter in his chair and goggling at Hermione. “I thought you were new to the Hallows Quest! Many of us Questers believe that the Peverells have everything — everything! — to do with the Hallows!”
“Who are the Peverells?” asked Ron.
“That was the name on the grave with the mark on it, in Godric’s Hollow,” said Hermione, still watching Xenophilius. “Ignotus Peverell.”
“Exactly!” said Xenophilius, his forefinger raised pedantically. “The sign of the Deathly Hallows on Ignotus’s grave is conclusive proof!”
“Of what?” asked Ron.
“Why, that the three brothers in the story were actually the three Peverell brothers, Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus! That they were the original owners of the Hallows!”
One was certainly Sirius—tall, handsome, younger than she remembered him in life. He moved with an easy grace, hands in pockets, that familiar grin on his face. He was utterly mesmerizing.
So that Peverell bloke who’s buried in Godric’s Hollow,” Harry said hastily, trying to sound robustly sane, “you don’t know anything about him, then?”
“No,” Hermione replied, looking relieved at the change of subject. “I looked him up after I saw the mark on his grave; if he’d been anyone famous or done anything important, I’m sure he’d be in one of our books. The only place I’ve managed to find the name ‘Peverell’ is Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. I borrowed it from Kreacher,” she explained as Ron raised his eyebrows. “It lists the pure-blood families that are now extinct in the male line. Apparently the Peverells were one of the earliest families to vanish.”
“ ‘Extinct in the male line’?” repeated Ron.
“It means the name’s died out,” said Hermione, “centuries ago, in the case of the Peverells. They could still have descendants, though, they’d just be called something different.”
The second was Remus—also younger, healthier, his hair thicker and darker. He looked content, as though happy to be back in the place of so many adolescent wanderings.
The next could only be James Potter. A mirror of his son, exactly the same height, wearing the clothes in which he had died. His glasses sat slightly askew, his hair charmingly untidy.
And finally—a young woman, radiant, with the widest smile: Lily Potter. She pushed back her long hair as she drew closer to where Harry must be standing, her green eyes—so like his—hungrily searching his face, as though she would never have enough of looking at her son.
“You’ve been so brave.”
“You are nearly there,” said James softly. “Very close. We are so proud of you.”
“Does it hurt?” Hermione heard Harry whisper—and her heart nearly stopped. In that instant, she understood what he meant to do. And she couldn’t let him. Not him. Not her Harry.
“Dying? Not at all,” said Sirius. “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”
“He will want it to be quick,” said Lupin. “He wants it over.”
“I didn’t want you to die,” said Harry. “Any of you. I’m sorry—right after you’d had your son, Remus, I’m sorry—”
“I am sorry too,” said Lupin. “Sorry I will never know him… but he will know why I died. And I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world where he could live a happier life.”
A moment passed. A chilly wind seemed to rise, as if the forest itself held its breath.
“You’ll stay with me?” whispered Harry.
“Until the very end,” said James.
“They won’t be able to see you?”
“We are part of you,” said Sirius. “Invisible to anyone else.”
“Stay close to me,” Harry said quietly.
Then came a faint crunch of wood beneath his feet. He was moving.
Following stealthily behind, Hermione cast a silencing charm on her shoes and reinforced her Disillusionment Charm. She could still see James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily—all walking, as if circling someone—Harry—deeper into the forest.
She briefly wondered why she could see them at all.
She heard Yaxley and Dolohov nearby, but both turned back, having seen nothing. Hermione followed the spectral figures, praying they still trailed her Harry.
They had gone only a few minutes when she saw a flicker of light ahead. Yaxley and Dolohov stepped into a clearing—Harry had once described it as Aragog’s lair. The remnants of his web still clung to the trees, though the monstrous spiders had long been driven out by the Death Eaters.
A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, its flickering light falling over a crowd of silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some still wore masks; others had bare, grim faces. Two giants sat at the edge of the circle, their massive shadows looming. Hermione saw Fenrir skulking, gnawing his nails, and dread swept through her like ice. She saw Lucius Malfoy—defeated, hollow—and Narcissa, her eyes sunken with apprehension.
Every gaze was fixed on Voldemort, who stood with his head bowed, white hands folded over the Elder Wand. Behind him, the great snake Nagini hovered within her glittering, charmed cage—his monstrous halo.
When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.
“No sign of him, my Lord,” said Dolohov.
Voldemort’s expression did not change. The red eyes glowed in the firelight as he slowly turned the Elder Wand between his long fingers.
“My Lord—”
Bellatrix spoke, sitting closest to him—disheveled, her face bloody but otherwise unharmed. Voldemort raised a hand to silence her. She fell silent instantly, eyes shining with fanatical devotion.
“I thought he would come,” said Voldemort, voice high and cold. “I expected him to come.”
Nobody dared speak.
Then Hermione saw it—Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, stuffed it beneath his robes along with his wand.
“I was, it seems… mistaken,” said Voldemort.
“You weren’t.”
Hermione acted without thinking. She cast a swift Accio—the Resurrection Stone flew into her hand. She shoved it deep into her jeans pocket, then whispered another Accio for the Cloak.
The gamble worked. She pulled it over herself again, vanishing just as the confrontation began.
She wasn’t going to let Harry die. Not on her watch.
He needed protection—protection like Lily Potter had given him.
But if she was to give him even a chance, Voldemort had to lose the Elder Wand too.
Hermione’s wand flashed. 'Expelliarmus!'
The Elder Wand soared out of Voldemort’s hand straight toward her. She stepped sideways to catch it—and in that moment, the hood of the Cloak slipped back, revealing her face.
“The Mudblood!” shrieked Bellatrix. “You dare cast at the Dark Lord?”
Voldemort smirked.
“I see the Boy Who Lived is not the only one who came here to die tonight. Well, go on, then.”
He gestured toward Harry, who stood frozen, trying to signal her silently to flee. His eyes shone with unshed tears. But Hermione only tightened her grip on the Wand and the Cloak, the Stone pressing against her thigh.
Then she heard Scrimgeour’s voice echo in her memory:
“To Hermione Jane Granger I leave my copy of *The Tales of Beedle the Bard*, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.”
Oh, instructive indeed.
Hermione looked straight into the red eyes of the most evil man alive.
“I am his equal,” she murmured—just before the telltale shriek of Avada Kedavra split the night and a blinding green light filled her vision.
And everything went dark.